


Breaking the Ice

by 852_Prospect_Archivist



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Drama, M/M, None - Freeform, Series, other pairing - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-10
Updated: 2013-05-10
Packaged: 2017-12-11 04:45:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/794098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/852_Prospect_Archivist/pseuds/852_Prospect_Archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jim and Blair go to a skating competition, and get into trouble with someone that Jim, at least, didn't really wanna meet.<br/>This story is a sequel to Power Play.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Breaking the Ice

**Author's Note:**

> There is no sex in this story (sorry), but there is something as remarkable: A PLOT!!   
>  it's rated R for language.   
> Also, it will be impossible to understand without reading the first story (archived or at my HP).   
> BIG HUGE HUGS AND THANK YOU WITH CREAM ON TOP TO MY BETAS!!!!

## Breaking the Ice

by Daphna

Author's webpage: <http://www.geocities.com/athens/2642/sentinel.htm>

Author's disclaimer: Jim and Blair are not mine. Never have been. No money exchanged hands. no infringment intended.   
River, Adrian and other original characters are mine. If you really wanna use 'em, you can, but ask first =0)

* * *

River Keith kept his eyes on the skating rink as the applause died down and the next competitor came up. The music started, and River watch his student and lover's graceful movements with a mix of awe and lust. 

When he first started tutoring Adrian Leigh, he was irritated by the young man's devotion to skating. It distracted Adrian from River's own mission, which was to take this man's barely useful telepathic abilities and grow them to their full potential. 

And then he saw Adrian skate for the first time. 

He came to pick him up from the Cascade Skating Club, and saw him there, saw the devotion, the concentration, the ability to fall and get right back up and try again. And somehow, this had been something he could understand and respect more than anything else. It brought Adrian close to his heart, so that he finally started seeing him as more than a student, more than a friend, more than a passing romance. It was love, if anything was. 

Adrian jumped into the air, twisting around and landing gracefully on the ice to the sound of clapping. It had taken him so long, so many falls, to master that maneuver, and he had taken the time, knowing full well that he would never be eligible for any competition outside of Cascade. He had started skating too late, much too late but still he devoted himself to it with a passion River was only now beginning to comprehend. 

As his gaze followed Adrian's movements, River was lost in a reverie of beauty, in a trance-like state. Adrian moved on the ice as if driven by a unseen force - one long leg following the other as he spun at an inhuman speed, the picture of a man lost in the flurry of dance. 

The pain was unbearable. It hit River like a kick in the groin, almost physical in its intensity, blinding him to anything else. He ran, pushing through the crowd on instinct, thinking only of finding the source. 

He ran through the corridors of the skating arena, to the dressing rooms, following a call that he already knew was hopeless. He found him finally, in the dressing room, blood oozing from three bullet holes in his chest. River leaned next to the body, paralyzed. He knew it wasn't supposed to be this way. The proximity shouldn't have made a difference. Powerful as his abilities were, he should be able to stop this. But he couldn't. His mind opened up against his will, focusing on the dying man, closing in on the pain, mental more than it was physical, not letting go. 

He felt the need to find something, he felt he owed it to the man, a last thought, an idea of who this man had been, but he failed. All he could sense was the final resignation, the final terrible admittance of the mind that it couldn't go on, and letting go, leaving the body, no longer a person, inanimate, empty. And still his mind focused on it, on the dead man. He knew it was absurd, trying to read a dead man'sa murdered man's- mind, as though it would help, but he stayed there, unable to move, the emptiness filling him, clutching at him, threatening to take his sanity. When the blow came to his head, knocking him out, he was grateful for it. 

* * *

Jim didn't know what he was doing there. Well, actually, he did. Blair  
had asked him to go, using the puppy dog look, which Jim couldn't resist  
even though he knew it was deliberately manufactured for his benefit.  
That's how he'd ended up in an ice skating competition, trying to understand  
what Blair, and the rest of America, saw in the sport. Not that it wasn't  
impressive, but how many times could you watch a guy circle around, jump,  
spin, land, and do it over? Once was all he needed. By the third skater  
he thought he was going to fall asleep, embarrassing Blair in front of  
all his friends from the University, who seemed to compromise most of  
the audience as well as the competitors.

When he first heard the screams and gunfire, he thought it was an illusion, something his mind was manufacturing to save him from boredom. Only when the screams continued did he spring into action. He got up, grabbing Blair with one hand and his police ID in the other, shoving through the audience and trying to place the source of the screams, which had stopped abruptly. 

"What's the matter?" Blair asked. 

"I heard gunshots, and someone screaming." Jim said, pushing the door labeled "Club members only", waving his ID at the confused guard. Out of the crowd finally, he pulled out his gun. "Come on." He added, turning a corner, and pushing a door to the locker room, where the smell congealing blood hit his nose. 

The view inside the room stopped him abruptly. On the floor lay the body of a man, dressed in skater's clothes with only one skate on, and three punctures in his blood covered chest. Kneeling over him, his pants and hands covered in blood, was a man that Jim never wanted to see again in his life. 

"Oh God." Blair whispered behind him. Jim pointed the gun at River. 

"Put your hands where I can see them." Jim said. No response. He moved closer. 

"Wait a minute, Jim." Blair said. "You don't really think he killed him?" 

"I'd say that's a definite possibility." Jim said simply, and moved behind River. He repeated the order to hold his hands up. When he didn't react, Jim hit him with the barrel of his gun, knocking him out. 

"What did you do that for?" 

"He's right here, next to the body. Either he killed him, or he found the body and didn't report it to the police. Either way, as long as he's conscious, he's potentially dangerous. We both know what he's capable of." 

"Oh, come on, Jim. He's obviously in shock. He hasn't got the presence of mind to put up his hands when he's got a gun pointed him, and you expect him to call the cops? And why would he kill him? With what? Do you see a gun? Cause I don't." 

"Maybe he's making sure we don't see it." Jim said. 

"Oh yeah, that makes sense Jim. Shoot the guy, then use your mind control abilities to make the gun invisible to the cops, but not use the same trick on yourself? And while you're bringing up the mind control thing, why shoot him in the first place? You don't think he'd have more effective ways of killing someone?" Blair said, almost yelling. 

"Look, Blair, you leave the police work to me. There's a payphone upstairs. Go call for backup." 

"But Jim, if he didn't do it..." 

"Just go make the call." 

Blair sighed, turned around, and walked out. 

Reluctant though Jim was to admit it, he knew Blair had a point. He couldn't just assume that River had done it. He made sure that the man was indeed unconscious and went out of the room. 

He walked along the corridors, his senses open. The music was still playing upstairs, and the occasional sound of clapping reassured Jim that all was well, so far. Well, except for the dead body in the other room. 

He reached the short hallway that housed the club's offices, and started opening doors, making sure that the rooms were empty. He had just opened the door to the third room when he heard footsteps coming from around the corner. 

Ducking into the room, Jim closed the door and waited. He tried to determine who the person was, most importantly his size, by the sound of the footsteps, but no information was forthcoming. Finally the steps passed the door. 

Quietly, Jim opened it, and walked out, gun pointed ahead. He stopped in his tracks. There, facing him, was River, his face serious. 

"How did you...?" Jim asked, gun still pointing at River's chest. 

"I recover quickly." The words were said with some irritation. 

"Keep your hands where I can see them." Jim said, trying to get over his surprise. River lifted his hands, but started talking, confidence shaping his words. 

"Listen to me, Ellison. I'm not the person you want. There are four others who are. Three are guarding the exits and the people upstairs, and the fourth is planting several bombs around this place. They've taken everyone hostage..." 

"Nice story." Jim said with a sneer. 

"Listen. Use that incredible hearing of yours. The music's still on, but there's no clapping, no talking. Am I right?" The answer was on Jim's face. "That's because they've stopped it all. They probably taken out the phone as well. That's why the backup's not here yet. Now, I can disable the guards, but there's a problem with the fourth guy. He's a telepath, very powerful, probably someone trained by the ISPP that left, and he's got a protective mental shield that's going to be very hard to pierce. It's almost as though he knew I'd be here." 

Try as he might, Jim couldn't dismiss this. Blair had been gone too long and the place was too quiet. 

"Supposing for a moment that I believe you, I can try to take out that guy, but we have another problem. If what you're saying about bombs is true, we need to evacuate everyone from this building. But how do we do that without alerting our guy that we're on to him?" He looked at River, his implication obvious. Could he do it? Could he make several hundred people leave the place quietly? 

"I don't know." River whispered. "I've never tried so many, something so complex. But I'll try. I will try." He looked young, suddenly, and Jim felt compassion for him, an almost fraternal need to strengthen him. The feelings scared him into saying quickly, too quickly 

"There's just one thing." 

"What?" 

"What if you're lying?" 

River sighed. 

"Look, we could sit here, arguing, and I could try to explain how utterly absurd and pointless it would be for me to manufacture this story; but right now there are a couple hundred people in danger, including Blair, and my boyfriend, Adrian. So we can sit here talking, or we can try to save both the love of your life and the love of mine." 

Though Jim knew this was no time to argue, he couldn't help himself. He'd been so angry at this man for so long, the words came out of him before he could stop them. 

"Oh, so did you find someone who wasn't involved this time, or did you just kick that other someone out of the picture with a twitch of your nose? Or was this guy actually willing to be your little sex toy?" 

The slap hit Jim's face fast and hard. He could almost feel the redness blossoming where blood vessels had burst. He stared stunned at River, who was suddenly very close. 

"Listen here you little shit! I may have done some things to you that were wrong, even inexcusable, but Adrian had nothing to do with it. I have never loved anyone as much as I love him, and I swear, if you say anything like that about him ever again, what I did to you in the past is gonna look like child's play. Got it?" 

With that he entered the office Jim had left, and sat down, eyes closed, immediately settling into a state of relaxation. Jim's hands were itching with the need to strike this guy, to make him pay. 'No! Not right now.' He told himself. If Blair was in danger, he had to help him, now. Beating people up would just have to wait. He spun around abruptly and set out in the search for leads, clues, anything that would lead him to his man. 

* * *

Blair was breathless by the time he reached the payphone. He picked up  
the receiver.

Dead. 

"Oh, great!" he muttered in frustration. He started to head back to tell Jim that something was wrong, when he felt the cold barrel of a gun against his back. He held his hands up. 

"Let's go, Shorty. One false move and you're dead." The gun was pushed harder against his back, forcing him forward. His assailant led him to the rink, towards the side bench where all the competitors were sitting. 

"Sit down." 

Blair complied, and the man turned around and went towards the door. Blair noticed another armed man at the other door. 

"Shit." He muttered. This was getting worse. Suddenly he felt someone touching his arm. 

"Blair." The whisper came, soft, close to his right ear. He turned, just a little to avoid suspicion. 

"Who are you?" 

"I'm River's boyfriend, Adrian. He just contacted me." The young man motioned to his head. "He says Jim knows about the situation and they're working on it. If everything works out the guards should be asleep in a few minutes and everyone will leave. He says we should leave with them." 

"No way. I can't leave Jim here with no one to watch his back." 

"I thought you might say that." Adrian smiled. "When everyone starts leaving, we head back inside to try and find Jim." 

"We?" 

"Yeah we. I've got something at stake here too. Besides, I may not be much of a telepath, but you still have a much better chance of finding him if I help you out." 

"Ok. Makes sense." 

They waited for a few minutes before the guards finally dropped off. It took another few minutes before the people started moving out, calmly and quietly. Blair caught the eyes of one of them, and shuddered at the blank gaze. 

"Come on!" Adrian said, hurrying him along. They moved through the sea of people, going against the flow, heading into the building. "I'm gonna need a couple of minutes to find Jim. Watch my back." 

"Alright. Just hurry up." The sudden quiet was making Blair nervous. Somehow when there were people there, he felt safer. 

The few minutes seemed to be days while Adrian got a lock on Jim. Blair wanted to help him, to guide the process along, but he didn't what to do. Finally Adrian looked up and said 

"Got it. Let's go." He all but dragged Blair, leading him like a man who had seen the light. It wasn't long before Blair was entirely lost. 

Finally, they stopped in front of an old, battered wooden door, which was slightly open. 

"Is he in there?" Blair whispered. Adrian nodded. 

"But there's..." His sentence was interrupted when a dark haired man opened the door from the inside. 

"Come in." He smiled unpleasantly. "I think I must thank you for leading me straight to the charming police officer. Well, don't look so surprised, you see, I couldn't very look for him on my own, because that would have broken my shield for too long, but your mental efforts made you so easy to find, all I had to do was read you for a split second, and I knew exactly where he was. Come in." The man said, motioning with his other hand, which held a gun. 

They entered the room, the man closing the door behind them. 

"Jim!" Blair cried as soon as he saw his lover standing in the room, hands tied. "Are you O.K.?" 

"Yeah. I'm fine. He just surprised me. You O.K.?" 

"Neither of you will be O.K. unless I get what I want." The man interrupted impatiently. 

"What DO you want?" Jim asked. It was safest to negotiate, for now. 

"Oh, let's not be rude. First let me introduce myself. I'm John Devereaux." Blair gasped. 

"You're the son of a bitch that sold River out to that newspaper." He said. 

"Adjectives aside, that would be correct. But you see, that was only the first part of my revenge on him. And now that I've found all of you, I think it's time to find the demi-god," he spat the word out, filled with venom "just as soon as I get you two here ready." He took two pieces of rope out of his pocket, tied one of them around Adrian's hands, the other around Blair's. He led them out the door, pointing the gun at their backs. "Let's go." He said, and started leading them back into the locker area. 

"So this was all just some complicated plot to get some sort of revenge on River for.. for what? Being more powerful than you are? Is that it?" 

"Not exactly. You see, while River, being the selfless, moral person that he is, was concentrating on saving all these people from the bombs I planted, he gave me the perfect opportunity to find you, Loverboy," he looked at Adrian. " You two were just an added bonus, a chance to get anyone who might protect him. You see, I've waited years for River to finally find someone he really cared about, someone who's life he'd save at any cost, if it meant doing anything. Anything at all." 

* * *

"....Anything at all." River heard the words behind the door, piercing  
through his weakness. He'd managed to get everyone out of the building,  
but he was exhausted. He wasn't sure he could move. It had been nearly  
too much. He was pushing the limits of his ability and was rapidly exhausting  
himself. All he wanted to do was close his eyes and sleep, succumb to  
the weakness, succumb to the pain in his head. But he knew it wasn't  
over yet. The door opened. He wanted to stand up, he wanted to do something,  
anything, but it seemed impossible. Blair walked in, followed by Jim,  
and then John Devereaux, who was smiling like the devil.

"Miss me? " He asked, bursting out laughing. 

"What do you want?" River asked, though every word seemed to be an unbearable effort. 

"Oh, I want a lot of things, River. I want power, I want money, I want control... and you're going to give it to me." 

"I'm not giving you anything." 

"Oh, I think you'll give me everything I want. You see, I have something that belongs to you." 

He opened the door with a flourish, and dragged Adrian in. 

"It'd be a pity to kill him, really, such a handsome boy, and such a good skater.... such a waste." 

"Adrian." River whispered the name like a prayer. 

"Don't listen to him, River. Don't do what he wants! It's not worth it! Stop him!" 

"Save your breath. He can't stop me even if he tries? Can you, River? You never took into account that I knew your limits, and what you did today was just a little too much for you, wasn't it." He grabbed Adrian by the hair, moving the gun back and forth over the man's chest. "So what's it gonna be?" 

Time seemed to stand still. All River was aware of was that Adrian was in danger, and he had to save him. He sent out the tiny tentacles of his power, trying to sense what he was up against. It seemed impossible that he could succeed, that his weakened self could possibly stand up against this great power. But he had to do something. 

Suddenly he felt someone beside him, felt Blair's hand laid on his shoulder gently. 

"River." He heard Blair whisper. "You can do it. You make the power. You told me that, at the Institute, remember?" 

"Shut up!" Devereaux yelled. "Make your choice, River." 

Blair glared at their captor, looking defiant, but Jim came to him. 

"Not now, Blair." He whispered, his arm circling the smaller man's waist. 

But River was lost to this. Blair had awakened his memory, and in it he was back at the ISPP, nearly seven years ago. Pacing his room he'd struggled to satisfy Blair's insatiable curiosity. What had he said to him then? 

'I make the power. I bend it to my will, and I bend others to it.' 

He held fast to this thought, repeating it over and over in his mind, and slowly, he felt the power grow within him. It was a weak pulse, at first, barely noticeable. But he was strong. He was as powerful as he willed himself to be. This had to be true, because if it wasn't, he was lost. 

He couldn't make that choice. He could NOT choose between saving the world and saving Adrian. What was that line from Shakespeare? 

"For you, in my respect, are all the world." If only it were that simple. If only he could say that, then he wouldn't have to choose. He could save Adrian, and to hell with the world. But the rest of the world mattered, and Blair and Jim's presence in the room made that all too sharp. 

He couldn't remember when he'd closed his eyes, but he opened them now. He looked at Adrian. He looked into his lover's eyes, brimming with tears, and he let everything else fade away. And in those gray spheres he saw all the strength that he needed. He willed the power to grow, to meet his needs. He didn't know where the new power was coming from, except that those were reserves of power he didn't have, that he wasn't supposed to use. But that didn't matter now. All that mattered was that he would continue to wake up every morning and see those beautiful eyes. 

Finally, knowing that he couldn't possibly get any stronger, he concentrated the entire force of his will behind the power and sent it out in a single, shattering blow. And suddenly, the shield was broken. The wall that Devereaux had built around his mind crumbled, and River was inside. 

Fighting the feeling of triumph that being entirely in control of another human being invariably caused in him, he forced himself to stick to the mission at hand. "Let him go and drop the gun." He sent the message directly to John's mind, and again fought the satisfaction as he complied without so much as a struggle. 

"You were right, John, when you said I'd do anything to save Adrian's life. We just had a different definition of 'anything'. He's all yours, Detective. I think he'll confess to the crimes without giving you any trouble." River said. He watched as Jim handcuffed John, and then his eyes closed with the exhaustion. His entire being seemed to ache. The final adrenaline rush that came with the power died down, and he knew that this was it. He used up more than he had, and now he would have to pay the price. 

He felt Adrian's arms around him, warm and comforting. He felt the breath of air on his cheek as Adrian whispered his name like a kiss, and he knew that no matter how long it took him to recover, he wouldn't be alone. He heard ambulance sirens, and he wanted to tell Adrian that he wanted to be home, in their bed, that he didn't need a hospital, only a place to sleep, but it was impossible, impossible to say the words. He felt the soft hands pushing the hair back from his forehead. 

"Don't worry. I know." His lover's sweet voice assured him, and then he collapsed. The warm darkness enveloped him, and he slept. 

-The End- 


End file.
